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Republicans face a similarly tricky task on immigration, which recently reemerged as a lightening rod issue after Arizona passed a strict state law intended to identify and punish illegal immigrants. The poll found that 54 percent of all respondents (and the same percentage of independent) favored a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have no criminal background and meet guidelines including registration, paying a fine and English proficiency. Among Republican respondents, though, 58 percent opposed such a path to citizenship.

Yet Ponnuru said opposing a conditional path to citizenship “did not seem to be winning message.” Republicans should focus their message on border security first, said Ponnuru, adding “the most popular argument against path to citizenship – or as critics would call it ‘amnesty’ – on the right is that it rewards law breaking and thus it’s wrong in principle.”

Sanchez said Republicans have to be careful not to antagonize Hispanic voters, who represent the fastest growing and most courted racial demographic. The GOP could satisfy its supporters’ desire for enforcement without ruling out a path to citizenship partly by changing the language of the debate.

“We need to kill the term ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ if we’re Republican and ever want to see this done, because that is so taboo in America it’s never going to happen,” she said during the panel.

Afterward, she added the word ‘amnesty’ to her suggest black list. “Amnesty is a bad word,” she said. “It’s like affirmative action. People have a sense for what that is, before you’re ever allowed to define what you’re talking about.” Instead, Sanchez said conservatives – and especially evangelicals involved in the immigration debate – are increasingly gravitating towards the word ‘legalization.’

“Everybody learned their lesson that ‘comprehensive’ and ‘amnesty’ were non-starters in the immigration debate,” Sanchez said.

Another area where the poll found independents more aligned with Democrats than Republicans was climate change, with 53 percent of independents believing that climate change is occurring and is caused by human activity. On the other hand, 49 percent of Republican respondents said they did not believe climate change is happening.

“When Republicans talk about climate change, the data pretty clearly indicates that a message that says ‘it’s not real, it’s not happening, humans aren’t causing it’ is a losing message,” said Ponnuru. “Now, that’s a message that has a lot of resonance, as the survey shows, among Republican voters, but it’s an issue where independents and Democrats are on the other side.”

Resurgent Republic’s poll was conducted by the firm Ayres, McHenry & Associates and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent for the full sample.

Overall, it offered encouraging signs for Republicans, with independent respondents saying by a 65 to 25 percent margin that the country is on the wrong track, compared to a 52 to 34 percent margin a year ago. And on a generic congressional ballot, respondents preferred Republicans by a 42 to 38 percent margin, including a 39 to 27 percent margin among independents. Additionally, the survey found that Republicans hold an edge in enthusiasm, with 64 percent of Republicans telling pollsters they are absolutely certain to vote in the 2010 congressional midterm elections, versus 59 percent of independents and 58 percent of Democrats.

Readers' Comments (79)

This reflects typical GOP spin. All they care about is messaging and words. Changing their policies is beyond the question, regardless of what's best for America. Ideology before America. That should be the GOP's motto.

Political Chess: Taking Control of Marco Rubio's campaign On May 3rd, 2010 BLACK CELL said: "We are winning" the illegal immigration debate. Ru** has already made it clear that they support some form of amnesty Now we have to force the repubs to give us their plan ( Bill).

TIPS 1- Put the Repubs who support some form of amnesty against those who don't.

2- Keep Marco Rubio defending his position on immigration.

3- Make it clear that the radical conservatives are going to lose a generation of Latinos like they did with black Americans.

4- Say that Arizona is trying to take their state back by pandering to whites HB 2281 – recently passed by the legislature and awaiting the governor’s signature. It is a bill at odds with American values, the purpose of education, and tolerance for other races and cultures.

Political Chess: Taking Control of Marco Rubio's campaign On May 3rd, 2010 BLACK CELL said: "We are winning" the illegal immigration debate. Ru** has already made it clear that they support some form of amnesty Now we have to force the repubs to give us their plan ( Bill).

TIPS 1- Put the Repubs who support some form of amnesty against those who don't.

2- Keep Marco Rubio defending his position on immigration.

3- Make it clear that the radical conservatives are going to lose a generation of Latinos like they did with black Americans.

4- Say that Arizona is trying to take their state back by pandering to whites HB 2281 – recently passed by the legislature and awaiting the governor’s signature. It is a bill at odds with American values, the purpose of education, and tolerance for other races and cultures.

When you think about it, the Republican party (and the Democratic party) is the leadership of the party. It is not the rank and file members of the party or those we elect that have a D or an R after their name. The leadership controls the message that is propagated by the "party". The message is driven from the top down.

The two parties operate in a pure democracy in which they battle to be the majority party. The majority party leadership controls the legislative agenda. The minority party leadership controls the response. The leadership of the two parties change, but the battles to be the majority party never change. This is our current political culture.

Polling is conducted to determine the correct message. The parties' leadership don't really care about what we think, they just need to develop their message to respond to the opinions expressed. The goal, minimize political risk and to maximize political advantage. Remember the goal is to be the majority party.

Where do we find ourselves in our current political culture? We are left out! Our voice is not heard! The two parties (party leadership) dominate the entire political process. We are just pawns in the chess match between the two parties for dominance.

If you are happy with that arrangement, so be it. If you see the imbalance with the current culture you must do something to change it. You must stop buying into the two party tyranny and the political scheming the two parties use. You must begin to elect third party and independent candidates to bring integrity and accountability back to the political process in this country.

I've been saying this for months...Fox news, the tea party is going to be a huge source of disappoint for the right... they are surrounding themselves ONLY with likeminded thinkers, and calling everyone else socalists or anti-american... and ignoring that the same minority of voters who voted for John McCain... still are in the minority. The same 1 million people who run around tea party being birthers...are the same 1 million who were birthers and didn't vote for Obama or the dems to begin with.

The GOP lacks a message to run on which appeals to the majority of the country, and the primaries have pulled the party even further out of the mainstream than it was the past few election cycles.

Dems will have trouble if the economy isn't in better shape by Novemeber... BUT generally speaking, as I've said for months, the GOP is in trouble if the economy improves and/or in the general election when people start asking "ok what are you talking about doing" and they are forced to defend these crazy wackjob far right positions they were forced to take in the primary

If most Americans were aligned to the left with all of those issues then the Dems would have nothing to worry about this fall.

I'm not really worried about this fall... its def possible the GOP will gain seats, in the Senate prob 3 seats or so, they'll win North Dakota, Reid and/or Lincoln could be in trouble... I think Reid will win out simply because he will dump so much money into defining his GOP as a right winger (and the tea partiers will help him do it) and he will eventually be seen as too far right for NV.

But the dems will more than likely win ohio which was red.. I think it may be a net gay or 3 seats or so for the GOP...could be less, but I don't see it being too much more.

The GOP will win.. 15 seats in the house or so... all in all, reasable gains, simply because we are coming out of a recession, and the dems simply have more seats they have to defend. But not nearly enough to shift the power of Congress.

The GOP has let the tea party and the far right, pull them out of the mainstream is costing them votes across the country. Why do you think Rubio is upset about immigration reform, Hispanics turning against the GOP, will cost you guys FL, IL, Colorado, NV...the GOP also has a senior problem thats going to develop if they go with "repeal health care reform", becuase dems are going to paint it as "the GOP is trying to cut funding to help seniors buy meds" since those benifits will kick in a month or so before the election

You can tell the gay left/right, progressive/libertarian factions are deeply concerned about November 2010 when they erroneously conclude and espouse propaganda pursuant to their distorted belief that the majority of Americans do not believe in a constitutional republic and federalism. Federalism wins in November 2010. If we're fortunate enough not to secede, the federalists will economically break the back of the progressive/libertarian factions.

Wow...what a huge bag. I've never heard of Resurgent Republic and that makes their motives at least a little suspect.

But, there is just no way most Americans approve of the new healthcare law, or blanket amnesty for illegals, or man made global warming. I suppose it's true that the US world standing has improved according to Castro, Chavez, militant muslims, and every other 2 bit tyrant. But it damn sure hasn't improved among our historical allies who regard this administration as weak, bloviating, and disinterested in them. And they're right.

And, if you actually read the poll results linked to in this article...it doesn't say that either. Geez, you'd think politico would at least do a little fact checking.

"Overall, it offered encouraging signs for Republicans, with independent respondents saying by a 65 to 25 percent margin that the country is on the wrong track, compared to a 52 to 34 percent margin a year ago. And on a generic congressional ballot, respondents preferred Republicans by a 42 to 38 percent margin, including a 39 to 27 percent margin among independents."

So, as long as the pubes don't talk about their policies or field a candidate, they win? Mmm. I've been saying for months that the republican base will ensure 2010 does not meet their expectations. They have no positions that can attract a majority at the polls and are unwilling to even moderate their rhetoric much less their policies. If they fail to modify their health care position, they loose for sure. If they don't modify on climate change, they probably loose. These positions are certain losers in 2012. Even if they're somehow not losers, what exactly are they for, besides against anything the dems are for? And if they keep dancing around Wall Street reform, nothing will matter, everyone knows the pubes real opposition is to anything proposed by the dems in general and Obama in particular.

Arm and modify beats defending their indefensible record. Since 1980, we've had 20 years of republican Presidents; 20 years of a Republican senate; 12 years of a republican house '94- '06, or 57% republican control. Still more important is what legislation actually passed. Since 1994 until '08, it was entirely republican sponsored. John McCain cosponsored Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005,S 190, reigning in FANNIE & FREDDIE, but it never made it out of a committee chaired, and led by Republicans with a majority of two, because Fannie, Freddie, most smaller banks, and housing industry lobbyists paid to kill it. Most importantly, the regulatory leaders from 2001-2008 were republican appointees at the Fed, OCC, OTS, SEC, CFTC, & FDIC, and most still are. At some point, Republicans became poor leaders, even along side Democrats.

The political pendulum has swung, but Democrats fear momentum in the pit. The economic role of Republicans has been both devastating & despicable, while most Democrats were insipidly complicit, and tainted too with Wall Street sycophants like Dodd, Schumer, Summers & Geithner. Rahm Emmanuel is leading the charge against auditing the fed. The White House, Federal Reserve and Wall Street lobbyists are kicking up their opposition to an amendment to audit the Fed as a Senate vote approaches, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the lead sponsor of the measure, said on Monday. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Democratics have the momentum, but their financial reform rushes toward reformlite; inadequate because although clearly delegating authority & responsibility unlike the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act, it fails to codify fundamental, simple rules, and an implemental timeline, and instead again relies too much on regulators' discretion like GLBA. Momentum is a strange thing. Incumbents beware, beef it up! Support the Sanders-Feingold-DeMint-Leahy-McCain-Vitter-Brownback Federal Reserve Transparency Amendment to the Financial Reform Bill

Call your Senator, call Senator Harry Reid (Senate majority leader), and call the White House. Tell them that you support the Brown-Kaufman SAFE banking act (unveiled yesterday) – as an amendment that would greatly strengthen the Dodd bill by capping the and leverage of our biggest banks. Politely ask the people who answer the phone to make certain that this amendment gets an “up or down vote” in the Senate. http://baselinescenario.com/20...

The tail is wagging the dog now. Not a lot they can do. If they don't toe the line with the crazy stuff then they lose their fervent supporters, and they can't afford to do that. If they embrace the crazy stuff and make their base happy then they lose independents, and they can't afford to do that either. I'm guessing they're gonna go with the crazy stuff, because at least that way they will remain relevant in the south for a while. A southern regional party is really their high water mark going forward. The Republican Party will probably cease to exist at some point in the next generation due to massive demographic changes rolling through the country. So take the time to look around and witness it - it is rare in American history that a political party dies, but it does happen from time to time, and when it does it looks a whole lot like what's happening to the Republican Party now.